


maybe i’m better off without you

by mindlesswriting



Category: ITZY (Band)
Genre: F/F, Very Loose Canon, fluff and angst that’s the whole story, itzy ensemble - Freeform, more of survival shows i guess, originally a one shot, predebut/dalla dalla era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindlesswriting/pseuds/mindlesswriting
Summary: just chaeryeong having a crush on ryujin and maybe ryujin is too caught up in trying to be the perfect idol to notice her.
Relationships: Lee Chaeryeong/Shin Ryujin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	maybe i’m better off without you

**Author's Note:**

> hello i’m back! this is a reallyyy disjointed piece (i’m sorry) that i wrote after binging mixnine at 2am in the morning,,, i wrote this as a one shot kind of thing and left it sitting in my drafts before realising oh fuck it’s gonna get deleted but i think a sequel is in order so i’ll try to write one! but as for now this can be read as a standalone. hope you enjoy!

hwang yeji has cat eyes. sharp, pointed at the edges, and always on the alert. she tries to help the members with whatever they’re going through, but sometimes yeji feels so _exhausted_ and she wants to curl up in a ball and not deal with her bandmates’ drama. she swears on her existence that being an idol is everything that she wanted, but after a couple of months she realised that that isn’t the case. 

choi lia has emoji eyes. always smiling, like the happy face emoji that she chooses to portray herself as. and her other bandmates envy her, for her ability to continue smiling despite hers scandals, despite her tough journey in a group full of dancers. she hates feeling alone, but even when she does, she puts on a smile just as she was trained to do. that’s why no one can ever differentiate her smiles. they look too alike for anyone to be able to tell them apart. 

shin ryujin has doe eyes. soft, but inside you can see the cold and the hard that she’s had, walling herself away from anyone that tries to get in. she hates it when people get in. she hates it when she’s forced to smile or pretend to enjoy herself in front of the cameras when all she wants to do is go to bed. sure, she’s shown the rare glimpses of her tearing up in front of the cameras, but honestly? ryujin hasn’t really cried since mixnine ended. 

lee chaeryeong has dog eyes. the kind where they can easily tear you apart if you offend them, but the kind where it makes you want to trust them with all your heart, spilling your deepest, darkest secrets to them. she can’t help it, the introvert self after the train wreck that was sixteen, she can’t help feeling so damn self conscious after netizens kept calling her ugly. chaeryeong doesn’t like opening up, because she’s so sure that whoever does will leave her eventually. (she hopes that’ll never happen.)

shin yuna has bright doe eyes. from the get go you could instantly tell that she’s the polar opposite of ryujin, despite having the same surname. yuna is more energetic, innocent, and _young_. well, two years younger, but all of itzy wishes that she would never have to go through what they did. but it frustrates her sometimes, the way that they all try their hardest to take care of her, when all she wants is to have a chance to take care of them, too. 

chaeryeong knew that she’d been a trainee for the longest time out of the five of them, she should’ve been desensitised or indifferent to new trainees entering the company. but she literally could not take her eyes off the short haired female trainee who walked into the practice room, her innocent character evident when their eyes met. 

so she began to find out more about her. how she was rumoured to be one of jyp’s best dancers, how she was supposed to join an audition programme, how she was chaeryeongs’s age. it wasn’t hard, honestly, the amount of gossip spread by idols and trainees alike was insane. her name was ryujin, and she was slated to audition for mixnine. 

and she knew that she wasn’t fully recovered from sixteen. every time she saw ryujin afterwards, be it at the practice studio or on mixnine, her heart shattered a little bit more. because she knew that no matter how hard she trained, no matter how good her moves were, she would always be seen as from jyp. the label of the elite. but it wasn’t entirely certain, whether she was obsessed - no, the term was in love - with ryujin despite her being on mixnine, or in spite of it. 

chaeryeong wasn’t really surprised when mixnine ended badly for her. it was obviously going to be impossible to beat out the popularity of boy groups, it was yet another dream crushed. she wasn’t used to comforting people, if she were to be honest. she spent most of her time being comforted by her sister, or those that she was close to when she failed at something. but when she found ryujin full out crying in one of the smaller practice rooms, she couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. 

“here, ryujin right? i’m chaeryeong. breathe, it’s going to be okay eventually.” she embraced the smaller girl, and she held on to her, comforting her despite her own silent heartbreak. as her sobs died down, ryujin looked up into chaeryeong’s eyes, and chaeryeong found her heart skipping multiple beats. 

“yeah, i’m going to hold you to that,” ryujin mutters as she lay down on the floor of the practice room. but chaeryeong didn’t notice that her eyes had changed, behind that sad innocent-eyed look that ryujin had she was mentally building up her walls again. so that no one could ever be able to see how absolutely broken ryujin could be, so that no one had to see ryujin crying again. 

about ten months later, it became okay. not by chaeryeong’s doing, of course, but in the form of a new girl group, one that ryujin was in. she didn’t get to debut with mixnine, no one eventually did, but after looking over at her group members, she decided that they weren’t half bad. except for chaeryeong, though. she made a mental note to stay away from her, she who had seen ryujin at her lowest points, she who _for some unknown reason_ still continued to talk to her long after that incident in that practice room. 

well, i mean, it’s not as if chaeryeong didn’t try to get close to her. she wanted to help her, get closer to her and know her better. because there’s something about being on a survival show that she can’t describe, it’s the loss of not being able to debut, but more than that it’s the self doubt and worthlessness that chaeryeong constantly deals with. chaeryeong has had it worse, she supposes, since twice went on to become of the best selling girl groups in existence. she wonders how ryujin can play it so _cool_ , be so _unbothered_ by everything that’s been going on. 

ryujin refuses to look into chaeryeong’s eyes. she’s never wanted to see how chaeryeong could end up so innocent, so persistent that if she did make eye contact, she’d crumble. break down, sobbing _yet again_ because ryujin apparently can’t hold back her emotions. by getting rid of her emotions, by getting rid of chaeryeong, she could lie to herself and think that it’s perfectly fine. of course it is. why would it be any different? sure, she debuted, and she was going to have to put the mask on again the same way she had in mixnine. and yeah, perhaps chaeryeong has been through sixteen, but she’s not ryujin, she’s not the one so scared of breaking down that she walls herself away completely.

itzy. to have, or perhaps to get. the five girls, who finally got their debut, but the five girls who have yet to grasp that they’re idols. rookies, but still idols. as itzy, they were supposed to have good chemistry. as itzy, they weren’t supposed to be avoiding one another. as itzy, they were expected to flash on their personas in front of the cameras or in interviews, but they were expected to be themselves when they went on variety shows or literally anywhere else. well, too bad for jyp, because they weren’t that perfect group that everyone seemed to think they were. ryujin was (platonically) clinging on to lia, avoiding chaeryeong, chaeryeong seemed to retreat to yeji’s comfort. yuna was just _there_ , confused as to why they weren’t as together as they should have been. 

when ryujin debuted, she didn’t expect the overwhelming support that was given. and, well, she was an idol now, but the amount of hate that she was getting as “somi’s replacement” and “the center with no presence” was way more than she prepared herself for. so she decided to chat up her seniors to ask for advice. 

“sunbaenim, how do you become a good idol?” ryujin passed by momo one day at their practice studio, and decided it would be a good opportunity. momo simply stared at her worriedly, her expression unreadable. “ryujin-ah, why do you ask?” ryujin just stared back, face collected, betraying no sense of anxiety. momo sighs. “ryujin, if this is about mixnine…” momo was at a loss for words. “if this is about mixnine… then i guess you don’t have to worry. how should i put this? even during mixnine, you were already there. i’m sure you’ll do fine.” ryujin nodded, and walked away wordlessly. momo stares as she disappears back into itzy’s practice room.

if momo meant that a good idol always wears their persona like their own clothes, never betrays their real emotions and tries their hardest, then ryujin was the best idol by her standards. the carefully constructed characters that they should uphold onstage might have been difficult getting used to, but ryujin supposed that it was for the best. she stayed back long after the other girls had gone home from work, practicing dalla dalla repeatedly and running on her own adrenaline and motivation. she handled the performances like she was born to perform, she calculated the appropriate reaction to a variety of scenarios. if her other members were concerned, they didn’t - _or couldn’t, because they were afraid of her reaction -_ say anything.

one night, ryujin was practicing in the almost empty jyp building. she let dalla dalla run continuously as she drank water, leaning against the wall facing away from the door. _“keep your chin up, we’ve got your back,”_ she sang softly. “keep your head up, just keep on dreaming!” lia belted as she suddenly waltzed into the room. ryujin just stared at her, because she thought lia had already gone back with the rest of them. “come on, yeji said you’ve got to come back home to eat. promotions are over, you’re not on a diet anymore.” and though she’s much stronger than lia, proved through countless matches of thigh wrestling, ryujin allowed herself to be guided out of the practice room and back to the dorm. 

dinner is a quiet affair once ryujin slips into the room, eyes defiant. the rest continue eating, but chaeryeong’s eyes are fixated on ryujin. “if looks could kill,” lia nudges chaeryeong gently, but she just turns her gaze onto lia. “okay, okay”, and the room lapses back into silence. “JESUS CHRIST”, the screech of the chair makes everyone wince in shock but yuna doesn’t care. “JUST TALK ALREADY.” and then, in a much softer voice, she adds, “i’m not hungry anymore.” she bolts from the table, and one look from yeji makes lia go after her. yeji makes as if to leave, but collapses back down into the chair. “i’m sorry for making you come back home before you finished practicing, but ryujin, you need to eat dinner at a normal time. come into the room once you’re done, okay?”

yeji collapses back onto her bed, and gets her second fright of the day when she opens her eyes lazily to find chaeryeong looking down at her. “yah, chaeryeong! what do you want?” “can i talk to you for a bit? it’s uh, kind of important…” yeji shifts to a sitting position. “yeah? what’s up?”

“soi’mveryworriedaboutryujinandidon’tknowhowtohelpbutialsothinki’vegotacrushonher.”

chaeryeong rushes it out, because she doesn’t know how else to say it, the thing inside her growing bigger and bigger until she can’t hold it in anymore. “okay, slow down. breathe. what is it that you want to talk to me about?” “uh, okay well… y’know how ryujin is always practicing late and never really opens up much to us?” at yeji’s tentative nod, chaeryeong finds the courage to continue to go on. “i’m kind of worried about her, and i don’t really know how to help… i don’t know. something about her really reminds me of myself after sixteen, but after sixteen i had my sister to help me through. ryujin doesn’t have anyone like that. and i think? i’ve got a crush on her that’s probably started since she entered the company and she’s like that innocent person who couldn’t seem to get over mixnine and really doesn’t want to be reminded of it but i think it makes me fall for her even more and i-“

yeji cuts her off. “well, it’s been kind of obvious you had a crush on her since you were trainees. you’d always look to her for approval or even just to talk, so that’s public knowledge. but you can’t blame her for being like that, i think she’s trying too. perhaps it’s to lia unnie instead of you, but it’s going to take a long time. just… be there for her i guess? and try to let her know that you’re supporting her no matter what she does.” she pauses. “and if you want to ask her out or something, i’m not going to stop you, and neither would anyone else in itzy i think. but chaeryeong-ah…” yeji seems to deflate suddenly to chaeryeong’s alarm. 

“...she may not be ready for you right now.”

chaeryeong takes yeji’s words to heart. she finds out that ryujin has left the dorm, so she camps out in the living room, leaves the light on as she lies back on their sofa. and amidst all her jumbled thoughts, she is distantly aware of the door opening with a click. she sits up wearily, but determined to confess to her this time. what chaeryeong envisioned was for her to be smooth, however nothing often goes as planned. what instead came out of her mouth was something like this:

“YAH, SHIN RYUJIN! WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?”

**Author's Note:**

> i Tried to make the ending a little ambiguous such that what happens next is up to the readers interpretation,, but i’m not sure if it turned out well. let me know in the comments what you think of it! i’m trying to improve my writing at the same time so feedback is very much appreciated :)


End file.
